Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-09-30
FRIDAY MORNING. SEPT. 80. 1887
LAUNCHED.

La UNCHED.
The Virginia Prohibition ship was
launched at the Staunton yard last Friday.
The crew was small but in earnest.
1t will have three very decided oppon-
ents at the threshold OF its voyage-The
two great political parties, will fight it as
a political competitor, and that large and
active portion of the temperance e lement
which does not think third party is the
best way to use their strength in the old
parties in behalf of abstinence. The senti
ment of this last opponent seems best ex-
advocate of total abstinence in Augusta
or thirty years, and who has decided
lractical results to show as the outcome
af that advocacy. His opinion with re-
gard to the third party movement is that,
If the Prohibitionists could not secure
what they desired by the local option law,
passed by the Democrats and endorsed by
ne Republicans, then they are not making
roper use Of the machinery which the
tate has put into their hands," This is
49O ACSoOhoOIO q wow udou ~ 10 aal0 w
controvert it. If the Prohibitionists have
not used the Local Option law effectively,
what guarantee is there that they would
use State Prohibition law more effective
~? The inquiry is not unreasonable.
A further objection. it will have to meet,
is powerful one, and was voiced to
certain extent in the convention. 1t is
that II has nothing IN front of it
to fight for. If vote was contempla ted
TO be taken next Spring on Prohibition,
then the party of last Friday would have
2 decided reason for massing its people
together in line and under discipline. In
deed. if the first work of the new organize
tion were but to be the preparation of thou
sands of petitions to the legislature, which
meets in December, for vote on Prohibi-
tion throughout the State; and, having Sc
cured that, its second work was to effect
widespread and searching party organiza-
lion for carrying majority for their side
Of the issue-the people in mass would see
something TOO practical in it to ignore.
3ut just now the practical result is toe
aebulous and too far off in the future to
nlist much enthusiasm. A fight for Pro-
3ibition, at the polls, would arouse all the
temperance sentiment in the State to
ever heat; but call from their party
affiliations to follow a platform which
says the debt must be settled, but gives no
plan; that the tariff can be fixed, but
gives no plan; that the millennium
can be brought on by Prohibition, but
3mits the shortest practical route to it i'll
Virginia, is not likely to secure the CO.
operation of even the active Temperance
members of the State.
There is not the slightest call for any
Temperance Democrat to follow this &C.
centric lead. HIS party has given the
Prohib.tionists the Local Option law
which is Prohibition law. The immedi-
ale question for him now co decide is not
BY the Prohibition party, but whether next
month he is to endanger that Democratic
aarty by throwing away mis- vote for the
Prohibition candidates. Nobody doubts
5he high moral purpose of Prohibition, but
shat doesn't enter into the questiOn-1t
10 the high moral purpose of the two Re
publican candidates yet to he nominated,
whose election Democrat would assist
by throwing away his vote On Messrs. Lyle
and Fultz now in the field as Prohibition
nominees. That is the question for a
Democratic advocate of Prohibition, and
not what the formation of third par
Cy in Virginia is to accomplish some years
from now. No Democratic Prohibitionist
should permit himself to be diverted from
the personal issue with himself, in his own
town and county, to others afar off. There
is no argument about the world being ben
Gifted If there was not drop of liquor in
It-every Democratic Prohibitionist will
endorse that; none about the Prohibition
party in Virginia growing in strength in
the future-that has been the experience
in every State in the Union; none about
the conscientious motives stirring the
men who are in the third party movement
the character and standing of the men
are sufficient for that-but the question to
be decided right here and now by every
Democratic Prohibitionist is whether he
shall draw his vote from the Democratic
party and cast it for Prohibition, while the
colored Republican Prohibition1sts rally to
the Republican ticket and cast theirs for
politics. What may be the question in Vir-
ginia five, ten, or twenty years from now
ge cannot tell, nor can he, but the ques-
ion noao is what we state it. Except in
IN election where there are no candidates,
he colored Republicans are going to
brow their votes for the Republican can
5idates, and the Democrat Prohibitionist
Sho throws his vote away on Lyle and
Rultz expecting the colored Prohibitionists
20 do the same will find that he has been
bamboozled.